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Someone Forked Systemd to Strip Out Its Age Verification Support (itsfoss.com)
submitted 7 months ago by to c/technology@lemmy.world
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[–] 7 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (3 children)

I do understand that, but I think you are applying a post hoc rationalisation to the change.

For example, examining the change through the lens of intended use -> you can't as there is no such use of the field today - it's tomorrow's use that is potentially problematic.

I don't want to wait until a bad actor applies the field, I want to stop the field from existing.

This change is not happening in isolation. There is currently a general trend towards de-anonymising users, and this DOB field is a step in that direction.

The only real question is, do I want my computer storing more, or less, personally identifying information. Given that I don't trust ANY use which may be later enabled by this change, my answer is 'less'.

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  • [–] 2 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (2 children)

    Maybe this is the issue. I have no problems with parents setting the age of the children in their account in order limit their access to certain content.

    And there clearly exists a use-case for that.

    My main issue is when it comes to third-party age/identity verification services. Age or identity verification in the hands of private for-profit companies is bad.

    I'd rather give parents the tools to set individual restrictions locally on their devices, then pushing for a global internet based age filter.

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  • [–] 3 points 7 months ago (1 child)

    most people can get behind parental control. that is why bad actors are pushing for age verification everywhere nowadays.

    i think the issue many people have with that field is, that it enables bad actors to do things. all the while, it does not really do the thing it is supposed to do: if i trust my kid with sudo, the field can easily be altered. if i do not trust my kid with sudo, it cannot install anything either way.

    with your last paragraph i (and probably most people) agree. but we already have those tools, right? at least until i knew computers better than my parents, there was no way i could install anything without them being OK with it. even when i was admin on my very own desktop, i was heavily reliant on the parents for everything costing money. yes, even my dumb ass figured out how to pirate stuff. but to do that while being afraid to brick your precious device with some virus - you need some tech literacy, which is for sure beyond changing one value.

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  • [–] 1 point 7 months ago

    most people can get behind parental control. that is why bad actors are pushing for age verification everywhere nowadays.

    Yes. And I would complain if there is a requirement to need third-party for-profit companies in order to verify peoples ages. Companies want data, and government want control. Both are bad in this case.

    i think the issue many people have with that field is, that it enables bad actors to do things.

    This needs to be proven. Currently it doesn't do anything. But there is work to integrate it with flathub, that would allow administrators e.g. parents, to limit access to certain apps. Maybe later there could be some kind of web interface, where a site that offers adult content, would ask the browser, and the browser would look into the account data and then respond if the logged in person is an adult or not. No third-party required, just the person that locally set the date of birth on an local account.

    all the while, it does not really do the thing it is supposed to do: if i trust my kid with sudo, the field can easily be altered. if i do not trust my kid with sudo, it cannot install anything either way.

    Many apps can be installed without root privileges, for instance via flatpak. And in the future it might prevent certain apps for kids.

    with your last paragraph i (and probably most people) agree. but we already have those tools, right?

    IDK... I think there are more tools available on Windows for that then on Linux... But I my parents never deployed those and I also never had the need for such tools.

    But I guess, very often DNS block lists can be used to block adult content... But knowing the internet and adblockers based on DNS alone, that will often lead to many false negatives and positives. So I would argue that we don't really have anything like it right now for Linux Desktops.

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